Great review. Interesting that you should mention The Hunger Games: part of the reason I read Eyes Like Stars is because Suzanne Collins blurbed it favorably. I'm still in shock. What did she SEE in it?

Unfortunately, blurbs for novels (and the same goes for movie posters) can sometimes have more to do with power plays and networking than true opinions. One agent calls up another agent and strikes a deal to get a good blurb, stuff like that.

Not saying that's the case here, but...

I'd actually rather have that be the case than that she actually liked this book. I should know better by now than to trust blurbs, anyway.

as if Mantchev took a bunch of notecards with various ideas that she liked for possible plot points, then simply threw the cards in the air

Yeah! And the really sad thing is, I feel like lots of those cards would sound more interesting alone than this book turned out to be.

Yeah, that brings up another good point. I liked the idea. The whole reason I bought the book was because I loved the premise (and because there were so many glowing reviews! huh?). Mantchev has good, creative ideas, for sure. It's the execution that's so poor.

Okay let me just say that this part of your review - "With "Eyes Like Stars" it's almost as if Mantchev took a bunch of notecards with various ideas that she liked for possible plot points, then simply threw the cards in the air, let them fall to the floor, then exclaimed (with a flourish of Jazz hands): "Brilliant! The story has taken on a life of its own! That's so... theatre-like!" "

- I nearly choked on my water because that had me cracking up. Especially considering that was pretty much my standing theory as well. :D

I'm right there with you. I loved the idea, but the execution was beyond horrible. And I was shocked that Suzanne Collins gave it a favorable review as well.
I attempted to give the series a second chance and picked up the second book. What a mistake that was (and a waste of money). I couldn't get past the first chapter. It was painful.

Totally brill review!

My God. This review makes me love you.

Spot on review. I too bought it strictly for its premise (come on, a girl who lives in a theater that houses every dramatic character ever written! Shakespeare quotes galore! An evil stage manager! How could it possibly go wrong?) I honestly never finished it, so I don't have much to add to the discussion, but the little I read of it made absolutely no sense. Shame, it could have had so much potential...

Okay....it's never a good idea to join a discussion where everyone disagrees w/ me.... but I loved this book. Okay. Done. Bye now.

I'm a theatre person, and this book embarassed me. I agree that it is way too immature, because I kept thinking of the main character as a twelve year old until it would mention her smoking. Then I would just sigh and shake my head in shame.

omg u guys really its called FICTION for reasin it shouldnt apply to real life plz just get a grip i loved all said and done

I really hope that Hannah's trolling...
Even if a book doesn't relate to the real world, it should at least make sense. Eyes Like Stars was chaotic and filled with too many plot points that had nothing to do with the rest of the novel...
As crazy as it might sound, I felt as if this book was a fan fiction gone wild. It takes a lot to use characters from other authors, much less Shakespeare. If you do it, you need to back it up with brilliant writing. Manchez clearly didn't do that.

It's obvious that Hannah's trolling. I was hoping she was also kidding. At least about her grammar.

I agree completely. It is of my opinion that Shakespeare would roll over in his grave if he knew about how this book put shame to his charecters names.

You seriously took the words RIGHT out of my mouth, lol. Every last bit of what you said is exactly what I was thinking! lol. I didn't even FINISH this book, unfortunately...I would read awhile, get bored and confused, skip ahead a chapter or so just to see if ANYTHING exciting was EVER going to happen...the answer was no. lol. It's so sad too, because I feel like the story had the potential to go places! I mean...a bunch of characters from plays all trapped in a theater together because some magical force from a Book of the Stage is trapping them there? Seriously, that could've been freaking awesome! It just seemed like the fun was sucked out of it, and was kind of deflated to me =/ So sad!

This review was pretty funny to read. I read this book a couple years ago, and yes it was really weed. And hard to follow. But I thought it was decent. It certainly didnt deserve this slap in the face

Wow…saying someone MUST be trolling just because they dare to go against the popular opinion in this discussion and say they like the book? Really Madison? How mature…
Yeah, I get that a lot of you in this thread felt this book was discombobulated or “thrown together by flinging note cards in the air.” That’s your opinion and you are more than entitled to it. I however don’t really see how anyone can really claim that. It was a fantasy. A lot of fantasies have a lot going on in them. I had absolutely no trouble following this book or had any difficulty understanding it. No, that doesn’t make me a simpleton or a “troll” it just means that I understood it. I thought this book was a rather welcome and refreshing change of pace from the overly done teen vamp or teen werewolf craze. I found it very clever, funny, and charming.

I can understand not getting it if you’re the type that doesn’t commonly read books like this. I grew up reading the works of Francesca Lia Block and quite a few other authors who write quirky off-beat fantasy, so I personally loved it. I get that everyone is going to have their own opinions about things but insinuating someone must be simple minded because they say they liked the book, that’s just uncalled for. There are millions of books and millions of different personality types for a reason. If we were all the same, liked the same things, and all had the same opinions, the world would be an infinitely dull place. That’s fine that you guys didn’t like the book, bully for you. Making fun of people that did like the book is just plain childish.

Actually Rachel, I wasn't saying that Hannah was trolling because she liked the book. If I were that low, then I would say far more people than just her were trolling, because a lot of people DO like the novel. I was saying that she was trolling because of her obvious poor grammar, which a lot of trolls use on purpose. And secondly, because of her statement, "its called FICTION for reasin it shouldnt apply to real life." Because, while fiction doesn't need to be REALISTIC, it still needs to follow a logical standard. Saying, "Oh, my book doesn't make sense, but it's fiction so that's okay" is not a good excuse most of the time, because while it doesn't need to follow the laws of our life, it still needs to be logical enough for a reader to follow. For me, I didn't think some of Bertie's actions were logical at all. Please take a moment to consider other views before calling someone out.

Also, I completely understand that you liked the book and I'm not insulting people that do. But I love fantasy books and hate the current vampire/werewolf genre that you were referencing to. Though, I still did not like this book. In my opinion, it was poorly written and a lot of the plot twists made no sense with how the characters were developed and often contradicted points made previously in the novel. Obviously we differ in opinions, but I'm just pointing out that not liking fantasy has nothing to do with not liking Eyes Like Stars. Right now, I'm reading Night Circus which, while it doesn't take place in a theater, has a lot of similar elements as Eyes Like Stars, only... it's done a LOT better. I would suggest reading something like that and then comparing the two. It's like night and day.

My apologies, but still you should probably elaborate WHY you're calling someone a troll. Just saying. Without the elaboration, it does look like you’re calling her a troll simply because she liked the book. While you might see the poor grammar and assume troll, others might just assume she’s very young. Elaboration is ALWAYS a good idea when saying anything that can be taken in an insulting manner.

Night Circus intrigues me. I'll look it up. Thank you for mentioning it. However, I still stand by my opinion that Eyes Like Stars was well written. I've read a great many, MANY books in the fantasy/fiction genre and I found it to be very well written. I read quite a great deal and have come across some extremely poorly written books throughout the years. I have seen true examples of poor writing. Eyes like Stars isn’t poor writing. Its very eccentric, I’ll give you that. However, there is a method to it’s madness…perhaps not all understand it, but it is certainly not incapable of being understood.

I honestly thought the events made perfect sense, as did Bertie's actions, when you considered the big picture of the overall story. I also found absolutely no contradictions...but I suppose this is one of those books that people will either absolutely love, or really hate, and also form ideas about the events that go totally on opposite sides of the spectrum.

I agree, someone shouldn’t simply say; “Its fiction, so therefore it doesn’t have to make sense.” However, I don’t think Eyes Like Stars was like that. As I said before, it made perfect sense to me and considering this book’s average rating is pretty high, I’m obviously not the only one who thought so. Oh, and no, you misunderstand me…I’m not saying that people didn’t like this book just because they are not fantasy fans. I was saying that this book is a bit quirkier than your run-of-the-mill fantasy. I was simply stating that if you like oddball fantasy then you’re more likely to appreciate this book. Even if you do like that sort of fantasy, sometimes a book will tickle some people’s interest and leave others cold. That’s just the way the literary world works.

Now if you want to talk books that make absolutely no sense, look up Ecstasia and Primavera by Francesca Lia Block. As much as I love her work, those two books were near unreadable. The rest of her stuff is fantastic though. Ruby is my personal favorite. Anyway, those are my opinions. Take them or leave them, it really doesn’t matter. I’m not looking to get into a long back and forth discussion on the matter, so let’s leave it at agreeing to disagree. :)